Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Stratis
This is a great point! One year, cell phone use got so bad we placed a basket next to the door at our build space - every student had to drop off their phone before entering, and any phones we saw out would immediately be confiscated and placed in the basket. Fortunately, we haven't had to do that since - the threat of the basket at the beginning of the season is usually enough.
As for at competition, cell phones are great to have from a safety perspective, especially if the students have phone numbers of adult chaperones. The best way to keep them off the phones during the competition is to keep the busy with other stuff. If you have enough students to fill a drive team, fill your pit, and fill your scouting team with some left over, find something great for those leftovers to do. Form a "help squad" of some sort to go around the pits and help teams (especially rookies!). Have a couple of experts on Chairman's or community outreach go around to the younger teams to talk about those aspects of your program, and help them improve their programs. Talk with the individuals coordinating your regionals, and see if they need extra volunteers to help run the safety glasses station, or to guide VIP's around the regional - these are perfect roles for students to help out with!
There is so much you can do at a regional, no one should be sitting around playing on their phones!
When in doubt, send your technical students to the inspection station to ask which teams need the most help - you'll quickly become your LRI's favorite team!
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More great ideas - I apologize for all of the questions, but myself and 2 other adults (alum of our school and our FIRST team) just took over the team this year so we're trying to make some positive changes for our team and for our students.
We don't necessarily have a problem with cell phone use in our build room - that tends to be more of a sneaking off into other rooms under the guise of scouting or homework to play minecraft on the computer for 3 hours.
I love the basket idea though.